Voice Post

[mary_j_59]

And here's a link to the wikipedia entry (what an awful transcription, btw!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_r

Comments

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

And the machine doing the transcribing must be a midwestern machine! I can hear the differences quite plainly, but it obviously couldn't!

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

O.K., that was pretty clear. I could hear you using very distinct vowels for each one. As I've said before, I'm used to hearing all of them pronounced like the first "Mary," with the "air" sound. It's like you shorten the second and third spelling's vowels, maybe on the assumption that the double-r should change it, as well as using a distinct "e" sound for "err" and "a" sound for "arr." Crazy to think some people aren't saying "Harry" as "hairy," the way I hear it in my head. ;-)

I'm not really as provincial as I'm sounding here. Honest. ;-) I'm aware of differences in accents, but this particular difference, according to the Wikipedia article, is confined to a few small patches in the U.S., mainly in the Northeast and the South, whereas the Mary-merry-marry pronunciation seems to be overwhelmingly "airy" in most U.S. accents and dialects, so it makes sense that that's what I'm hearing. I'm guessing the "no difference" pronunciation is also part of the standard broadcasting accent in the U.S., which is, of course, based on the "Midwestern" accent (as if there were only one).

The Wikipedia article is very helpful, if a bit intimidating with all the technical phonetic symbols. (I'm not a linguist, as should be evident by now!) And I see we could have made this easier by just looking at the first two sound samples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_r#Sound_samples) at the bottom of the article. They illustrate the different pronunciations very clearly. For what it's worth, I heard the first one as "bland and neutral," and the second one as "this guy has an accent, a nasal and kind of spread out accent, kind of twangy, maybe farmer-ish." I suspect your instinctive responses are different than mine!

Anyway, it was fun finally breaking into the realm of voice posting. ;-) I didn't transcribe mine, and have debated if I should; I'm surprised none of the people who've listened have transcribed it, but I'll take your advice and check it for necessary edits if someone does!

Another example of voice post transcription

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I was just checking my friends list before taking a nap, and saw another voice post from someone who is traveling to Mexico with her daughter to work with a mission. It auto-transcribed, as yours did, with about as much accuracy. Two people who listened to her post offered their own alternative transcriptions in the comments.

The post is here (http://pegkerr.livejournal.com/1199067.html).

(ETA: It looks like someone was able to correct the original transcription, but you can still view Spinvox's original handiwork on the transcription history page (http://www.livejournal.com/voicepost/transcribe.bml?user=pegkerr&ppid=10511). It's really quite, um, amazing.)

And I think Peg was born and raised in the Midwest, so it's not just your New England accent that Spinvox doesn't like. ;-) Technology still has a few bugs...